Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
